Modem health care consumers must frequently face a dichotomy between the need for continued access to health care and the need to control the growth of health care expenses. While a number of options exist that help alleviate the growing health care expenditures, many such options have inherent limits. For example, Flexible Spending Arrangements (FSA) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA) help reduce the consumers' costs of health care related spending that is not covered by health, dental, or vision insurance by allowing tax-free savings to be allocated for future health care expenditures. However, not all consumers have access to these options because employer participation in these plans is a necessary prerequisite and, at least in the case of the FSA, only a fixed amount of consumer's pre-tax dollars is eligible for participation. Therefore, consumers that are not able to take advantage of the FSA/HRA type arrangements, as well as consumers that incur health care expenses well above the predefined tax-free limits or that otherwise are not covered by insurance, are forced to rely on personal savings or other financial products, such as loans and credit cards to pay for the balance of their health care expenses. For some consumers, this acts as a disincentive to continue receiving the same quality of health care services and, therefore, may lead to a decline in personal health.
On the other hand, maintaining and improving the personal health of their consumers is of primary concern to certain health care organizations, including health insurance companies, for example. Therefore, health care organizations have an interest in promoting health care, including helping the consumers pay for the growing health care expenses, and a need to identify the consumers which may respond in a positive way. While many health care organizations have extensive records collected in the process of providing health care products and services, use of such information is regulated in order to safeguard the consumer privacy. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the associated regulations require an authorization to use and disclose individually identifiable health information, unless such information is used in connection with providing health related products or services.